Friday, January 17, 2014

nothing and something

On a day when a Pennsylvania couple is suffering the fallout from trying to sell their "slightly haunted" house and South Korean conscientious objectors, like CO's elsewhere, are jailed for stating what you might think the military would thank them for announcing (who wants an unwilling soldier on the front lines?) and a Japanese man who spent 29 years in the jungle because he did not believe World War II had ended has died at 91 and U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce revisions (and if you believe that one, I have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn to sell you) in the National Security Agency's invasive-but-dreadfully-'important' snooping capabilities ... and lots of other bits of news are floating around like bubbles in a shaken bottle of Pepsi ... well, in the face of all that and relatively speaking, "I've got nothing."

Nothing that seems to be something.

In the backyard, a couple of shingles fell off the zendo roof and I have called on roofer to get an estimate for how much it might cost to reshingle. It's not a big job and at another time I would have done it myself. I resent the fact that the "30-year-shingle" I bought and applied in 1998 has begun to crumble in about half the guaranteed time. I cringe at what I suppose will be the indignity of not being able to afford the work.

And, as if to add fuel to the flames, the "donate" organization I am linked to on this blog (WePay) sent me some sort of notification that I will have to revise my connection to them... hook up with some other donation organization in order to maintain my status. I dislike the bureaucracy, but more, I dislike being reminded that asking for donations is pretty uppity in the first place: What tangible service or goods do I offer that warrants such requests? I write and the zendo is open to the public ... but otherwise? There is food on my table and there are so many others who have more compelling cases. It's one of those aaaaarrrrrgh situations. Assuming the roofer does come with an estimate, I can imagine its costing about as much to reshingle what amounts to a large shed (16x12) as it cost me to build the whole structure in the first place ... $2,000 ... and it could hardly take more than a day to do the work. Groan and grumble under grey skies.

The best I can come up with this morning is to be thankful that the early fog is not possessed of sound. Talk about a noisy environment!

4 comments:

Having recently paid around 6500 bucks to re-shingle my entire house, my guess is that a building as small as the zendo will be less than 2k. The number will still no doubt be annoyingly high. One avenue may be to pursue a warrantee claim against the shingle manufacturer, if they are still in business. A simple phone call might be sufficient.

My name is Adam Fisher. I live in Northampton, Mass., U.S.A. I have a wife and three children. This is my blog and consists of almost-daily postings -- sometimes (older) about the Zen Buddhism I have admired and practiced for something short of 50 years; sometimes about other 'spiritual' matters; and (more recently) about whatever strikes my fancy. Except to the extent that it might help others to consider what sort of fool they might prefer not to be, this blog does not aim to help anyone. Writing is an old and diminishing habit. It's what I do. Once upon a time, I built a zendo/meditation hall in the backyard here and invited people to come. The zendo is still there and my Dharma name is still "Genkaku" ("original realization" or "original understanding") but these days the formality of meditation has drained. Black Moon Zendo is still a good zendo, but I am 77 in 2017 ... creaky and disinclined. I honor those who make courageous journeys, but am hoist by my own observation that "Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help." Best wishes to all. I can be contacted at genkakukigen@aol.com